


Erised

by Fyre



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Once Upon a Time (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 11:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Through a great many deals, a certain mirror falls into Rumpelstiltskin's hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Erised

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this entirely:  
> [](http://nothingeverlost.tumblr.com/post/31647145086/it-shows-us-nothing-more-or-less-than-the-deepest)

Rumpelstiltskin’s fingers twitched. He hated mirrors. He had always distrusted them, knowing who could be looking back out, but this one was special. A thousand deals had brought it into his hands, and he knew he could not leave it covered forever.

Erised. It was a weakness, an old man’s folly, a longing that he wished he could ignore.

He curled his fingers into the heavy dust sheet and pulled it aside. The mirror was broad, heavy-framed and gilded. The glass was thick with dust. He brushed a streak aside with his hands and recoiled at the sight of bright, laughing blue eyes looking back at him. Eyes he knew well. Eyes he loved.

His heart drummed a rapid beat against his sternum. If she was there, she wouldn’t be alone. His hand was shaking as he took the dust sheet and rubbed at the glass. He didn’t dare look at his reflection, not yet, not until it was all clear.

Only then did he stand back, and look. She was not alone. Rumpelstiltskin recoiled, his breath a ragged rasp in his throat. His chamber was reflected in the glass perfectly, but he was alone outside of the mirror, and the man that was him inside the mirror had his boy and his beloved.

Rumpelstiltskin whirled away, grabbed the golden chalice and hurled it the mirror, which cobwebbed, shattering the image, leaving it in broken fragments. He threw the dust sheet over it, sagged to the floor and tried to remember how to breathe.

He should have got rid of it. It was torture to see it. But he kept it. He kept it and he looked and looked and looked, night after night.

It was shattered and broken and their faces were cracked and no longer right, but it was the closest thing he had to them. If he couldn’t solve the curse, it was the closest he would get.


End file.
